The U.S. is contributing to the spread
of HIV/AIDS among African women by its reckless distribution of hormonal
contraceptives of all kinds in so-called reproductive health programs.
This is in addition to pornographic sex education and the massive distribution
of condoms both of which encourage risky sexual behaviors. Population
control, anyone? The Pill's Deadly Affair with HIV/AIDS

by Joan Claire Robinson

The world's deadliest killer, HIV/AIDS, and
the Birth Control Pill have been carrying on a secret and deadly "love affair"
for decades. While women swallowed their freedom with the morning orange
juice, studies that should have made global headlines yellowed in medical
journals, unknown to the general public. Only doctors learned about the pills
deadly affair with HIV/AIDS, and they were too busy writing prescriptions for
hormonal contraceptives to talk.

More than 50 medical studies, to date, have
investigated the association of hormonal contraceptive use and HIV/AIDS
infection. The studies show that hormonal contraceptives the oral pill and
Depo-Provera increase almost all known risk factors for HIV, from upping a
woman's risk of infection, to increasing the replication of the HIV virus, to
speeding the debilitating and deadly progression of the disease.1

A medical trial published in the journal
AIDS in 2009 monitoring HIV progression by the need for antiretroviral drugs
(ART) saw the risk of becoming eligible for ART was almost 70% higher in women
taking the pills and more than 50% higher in women using DMPA [Depo-Provera]
than in women using IUDS.2

Studies aside, it is well known that
HIV/AIDS strikes more women than men. Some would argue that this is a
result of the desire of men for young and presumably uninfected, sexual
partners. Few are willing to discuss a more obvious explanation, namely,
that the Pill and Injectables render women particularly vulnerable to
HIV/AIDS.

How serious is the problem? Oral
contraceptives and Depo-Provera are among the world's most popular and prevalent
contraceptive methods. According to one study, More than 100 million women
worldwide use hormonal contraception.3 In America, hormonal contraceptive rates
are over 52% in unmarried women those at greatest risk of HIV/AIDS.
Moreover, in the interest of lowering the birth rate, the UNFPA and USAID
continue unloading boatloads of hormonal contraceptives on Africa, Haiti and
other AIDS-ravaged developing nations.

The best meta-analysis done to date, done by
Dr. Chia Wang and her colleagues, surveyed the consensus results of the 28 best
published studies since 1985. They found that the significant association
between oral contraceptive use and HIV-1 seroprevalence or seroincidence
increased as study quality increased. In fact, Of the best studies, 6 of 8
detected an increased risk of HIV infection associated with OC [oral
contraceptive] use.4

On the National
ScaleMoreover, Wang's results showed even more of a Pill/HIV link
when they limited studies to those conducted on African populations. This is
significant for two reasons:

First, sub-Saharan Africa is home to the
world's earliest and largest heterosexual HIV/AIDS epidemic, which to date has
infected an estimated 22.4 million5 people. This is two-thirds of the
total number of infections worldwide.

Second, sub-Saharan Africa has endured
decades of contraception-focused population control programs and countless
hormonal-contraceptive trials. Among the six countries hardest hit by the
HIV/AIDS epidemic two in three users in the six countries rely on the OC (oral
contraceptives) or injectables,6 said Iqbal Shah of the World Health
Organization.

Likewise, Thailand, praised for a
contraceptive prevalence of 79.2% in 2000 and upwards of 70% today, is a land
where, More than one-in-100 adults in this country of 65 million people is
infected with HIV. 7 Among Thai women, Oral contraception is the most popular
method.8 9

On the other hand, Japan's HIV rate is, at
0.01%, one of the lowest in the world.10 In this context, it is important
to note that the birth control pill was illegal in Japan until 1999, and even
today only 1% of Japanese women use oral contraception. Similarly, the
predominantly Catholic Philippines, with a longstanding popular resistance to
contraception, boasts an HIV prevalence rate of only
0.02%.11

Hormonal Changes
Heighten HIV RiskThe studies that demonstrate a connection between
hormonal contraceptives and HIV/AIDS infection postulate a number of mechanisms
at work.

First, let's review the basics. The
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), is carried in warm blood or sexual fluids.
It infects through fragile, inflamed, bleeding or needle-pricked tissue, attacks
specific T-cells in the immune system, and causes the incurable, debilitating
condition known as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome).

Hormonal contraceptives increase almost all
known risk factors for HIV infection.

Studies have found that hormonal
contraceptives alter the microenvironment of the female 12 and boost the
cell count of those specific cells that HIV uses to infect and proliferate (HIV
co-receptor CCR5 in cervical CD4+ T lymphocytes).

What is more, a progesterone side effect
known to American women as breakthrough bleeding, is caused when hormonal
contraceptives excessively thicken the uterine lining. The large, bleeding
surface of the uterus creates an ideal site for HIV infection.

Progesterone also has an immunosuppressant
effect, which means that women using hormonal contraceptives have less in the
way of natural defenses against HIV and other STDs, such as chlamydial infection
or genital herpes (HSV-2).13 14 In one study, HSV-2 infection itself more than
tripled the risk of HIV infection.15

In the vagina, increased blood and the
independent hormonal effects of the Pill eliminate the natural pH acid
protection against infection. What is more, a famous study of rhesus macaques
found that hormonal contraceptives thin the vaginal walls and markedly increase
SIV infection (the monkey equivalent of HIV).16 Vaginal dryness, another side
effect of hormonal contraceptives, is not only painful but also makes one prone
to tears and abrasions fertile sites for infection.

One study points out, On a cellular level,
hormonal contraceptives have been associated with cervical and vaginal
inflammation.17

Further, hormonal birth control causes the
fragile cervical tissue to grow beyond its natural bounds and replace what would
normally be thick, protective membrane. This cervical ectopy is dangerous
because the cervix's thin surface is the main site of HIV
infection.18

Given all these different ways that hormonal
contraception promotes HIV/AIDS infection, it is not at all surprising that
several studies show women on the pill, Depo-Provera, etc., are more likely to
be infected with not just one, but several variants or strains of HIV.
This in turn leads to higher levels of viral replication and more rapid HIV-1
disease progression. 19 20 21

Women on hormonal contraceptives are not
only more likely to contract HIV/AIDS, they are also more likely to pass it
along to their sexual partners. The three studies which focused on the
impact of hormonal contraception on cervical shedding of the cell-associated
virus 22 all found that HIV-positive women on hormonal contraceptives are far
more likely shed HIV in their body fluids. High-dose pill users were
over 12 times more likely to shed the HIV virus than women not using
contraception, low-dose users were almost 4 times more likely, and Depo-Provera
users were 3 times more likely.23

The Pill Pushers Push
BackSome dismiss out of hand the impressive body of scientific
research demonstrating a Pill/HIV link. They quote from the handful of
studies and highly selective trials which claim to find no increase in HIV risk
among users of oral contraceptives and Depo-Provera.24

The problem with many of these studies, such
as Mati et al. 1995, Kapiga et al. 1998, and Sinei et al. 1996 is that they were
conducted with and through family planning clinics. Since the chief business
of these clinics is the promotion, sale, and distribution of contraceptives, the
possibility of bias is undeniable. Who would trust Marlboro to monitor a
study on the link between cigarettes and cancer?

Moreover, the handful of studies that deny a
link between hormonal contraception and increased risk of contracting HIV are
dwarfed by the more than 50 studies that have not only found such a link, but
convincingly explained precisely what it is about such contraception that
contributes to the spread of the disease.

Yet population control groups continue to
lobby for more contraception, not less. Take Dr. Willard Cates, president
of the Institute for Family Health of Family Health International (FHI), one of
the major purveyors of hormonal contraception to the developing world.
Wrote Cates to the Journal of American Medical Association, Preventing
unintended pregnancies among HIV-infected women who do not currently wish to
become pregnant is an important and cost effective way of preventing new HIV
infections of infants. More must be done to ensure access to safe and
effective contraception for HIV-infected women.25

Obviously, FHI's concern here is less to
prevent the infection of preborn infants, than to continue to contracept as many
women as possible with your tax dollars and mine. What the organization
refuses to admit, however, is that by doing so it is arguably contributing to
the spread of the HIV virus.

How many lives are being lost because we
continue to ship boatloads of hormonal contraceptives to a continent and to
countries laboring under an HIV/AIDS pandemic? Isn't it time that we
stopped?